Two new transportation safety studies have found that U.S. cities can potentially save millions of dollars in injury and societal costs by using red light camera photo enforcement technology.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that more than 900 people a year die and nearly 2,000 are injured as a result of vehicles running red lights. About half of those deaths are pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles who are hit by red light runners.

In addition, the cost-benefit analysis, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on the economic benefits of photo enforcement technology in the U.S., analyzed traffic data from seven U.S. communities that use cameras to enforce compliance with traffic signals.

Researchers estimate total societal cost reductions for all the red light camera jurisdictions studied to be over $14 million per year. This amount is completely separate from any revenue brought in by camera violation fines. In discussion of these findings at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the researchers called these estimates, “conservative.”

Campaign Executive Director Leslie Blakey said, “These new studies have shown that the average red light camera location in the U.S. results in $38,000 a year in reduced societal costs, not to mention the number of lives and grief saved from fewer right-angle crashes.”

The two studies compared the incidence of right-angle crashes, most frequently associated with red light running, to rear-end crashes that may increase, once photo enforcement devices are installed. The analysis found that although rear-end crashes increased as right-angle crashes declined, the reduction of the more severe red light running crashes resulted in the significant net benefit from photo enforcement deployment. When property-damage-only crashes were excluded, the benefit was almost five percentage points higher, due to the much greater costs from right-angle injury and fatal crashes.

“Any thorough study of intersection crashes has to reach the conclusion that a 30 mph crash into the driver’s side or passenger side of another vehicle will cause more deaths and injuries than a low speed rear-end crash,” said Lt. Richard Carlson, Commander of the Sacramento, CA Metropolitan Red Light Photo Enforcement Program. “These new studies confirm the benefit of red light cameras to a community. They save lives by reducing dangerous right angle crashes.”

Researchers, led by Bhagwant Persaud and Forrest Council, reviewed traffic data from; Baltimore, MD, Charlotte, NC, El Cajon, CA, Howard County, MD, Montgomery County, MD, San Diego, CA and San Francisco, CA.

For example, the Charlotte, North Carolina red light camera program cut violations by more than 70 percent in the first year, and crashes dropped by more than 10 percent citywide, demonstrating that these systems have a positive community-wide impact.

The studies, which were funded by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, were conducted by researchers at BMI-SG, Ryerson University in Canada and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluations.